With the development of integrated circuits, it has been possible to reduce the size of electronic equipment. Integrated circuits are normally manufactured by forming a plurality of them on a wafer where they can be subjected to limited testing. After these tests, the chips are separated and each of them is mounted into an integrated circuit package. The package, in turn, can be placed into a carrier where it can be tested and inspected by conventional methods. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,409,861. To make it possible to reduce the size of electronic equipment even more, attempts have been made to mount these micro-electronic chips directly to a hybrid circuit substrate instead of first mounting them in the integrated circuit package. Due to the inordinately small size of the micro-electronic chip, it is not possible to perform a number of tests on the chip prior to mounting it directly to the hybrid circuit substrate.
A micro-electronic chip carrier and testing fixture has been developed to allow the micro-electronic chip to be subjected to all necessary electrical and environmental testing. The carrier and testing fixture as shown in co-pending patent application Ser. No. 565,637 by S. A. Bonis, assigned to the same Assignee. That carrier includes a base and a printed circuit board that includes electrical conductors and a rectangular aperture for receiving the micro-electronic chip. The micro-electronic chip is mounted on the printed circuit board located on the base and a transparent cover is installed over the micro-electronic chip and retained there by a resilient metallic clip. Since the beam leads of the micro-electronic chip are made of gold deposited over platinum and are approximately 5 mils. (0.005 inches) wide and approximately 5 mils (0.005 inches) long, they are fragile. Any sliding movement of the chip relative to the printed circuit board could damage or break the leads. Thus, any sliding movement of the micro-electronic chip relative to the base or the cover must be avoided.